idiots best elites

KNOWLEDGE

Knowledge is diffuse rather than acute - most knowledge is communal. One individual can master a particular sub specialty, but cannot know very much other than that. A lot is made about great discoverers in the past who mastered many subjects, but this is misleading because they knew so little back then. A college preparatory curriculum in high school will teach more less all the knowledge in the world into the beginning of the enlightenment. After just a few years in college one can know everything Newton knew and then some. Todays intellectuals know only a small sliver of technical knowledge, and it pays off in high productivity to specialize. On the other hand, one can still get by pretty reasonably without much knowledge, often being too smart will alienate one from the masses. It would be better to be governed by people randomly picked out of the phone book than by intellectual elites. Socialism failed because a mass of nitwits acting in self interest can out think a committee of high intellects acting altruistically.